Global summary

Identifying changes in the reproduction number, rate of spread, and doubling time during the course of the COVID-19 outbreak whilst accounting for potential biases due to delays in case reporting both nationally and subnationally. These results are impacted by changes in testing effort, increases and decreases in testing effort will increase and decrease reproduction number estimates respectively.

Table of Contents

Using data available up to the: 2020-10-22

Estimates (based on reported cases and deaths) are available for download here.

See our see Methods or our paper for an explanation of how these estimates are derived.

Interactive summary


Figure 1: The results of the latest reproduction number estimates (based on estimated confirmed cases with a date of infection on the 2020-10-22) can be summarised by whether confirmed cases are likely increasing or decreasing. This represents the strength of the evidence that the reproduction number in each region is greater than or less than 1, respectively (see the methods for details). Click on a country (or search) to see national level estimates (and a link to subnational estimates if available). This interactive visualisation is powered by RtD3(Gibbs, Abbott, and Funk 2020).

Global and regional summary

Summary of latest reproduction number and confirmed case count estimates by date of infection


Figure 2: Confirmed cases with date of infection on the 2020-10-22 and the time-varying estimate of the effective reproduction number (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval). Regions are ordered by the number of expected daily confirmed cases and shaded based on the expected change in daily confirmedcases. The horizontal dotted line indicates the target value of 1 for the effective reproduction no. required for control and a single case required for elimination. Uncertainty has been curtailed to a maximum of ten times the maximum number of reported cases for plotting purposes.

Reproduction numbers over time in the six regions expected to have the most new confirmed cases


Figure 3: Time-varying estimate of the effective reproduction number (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval) in the regions expected to have the highest number of new confirmed cases. Estimates from existing data are shown up to the 2020-10-22 from when forecasts are shown. These should be considered indicative only. Estimates based on partial data have been adjusted for right truncation of infections. The vertical dashed line indicates the date of report generation.

Confirmed cases and their estimated date of infection in the six regions expected to have the most new confirmed cases


Figure 4: Confirmed cases by date of report (bars) and their estimated date of infection (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval) in the regions expected to have the highest number of new confirmed cases. Estimates from existing data are shown up to the 2020-10-22 from when forecasts are shown. These should be considered indicative only. Estimates based on partial data have been adjusted for right truncation of infections. The vertical dashed line indicates the date of report generation. Uncertainty has been curtailed to a maximum of ten times the maximum number of reported cases for plotting purposes.

Confirmed cases and their estimated date of report in the six regions expected to have the most new confirmed cases


Figure 5: Confirmed cases by date of report (bars) and their estimated date of report (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval) in the regions expected to have the highest number of new confirmed cases. Estimates from existing data are shown up to the 2020-10-22 from when forecasts are shown. These should be considered indicative only. Estimates based on partial data have been adjusted for right truncation of infections. The vertical dashed line indicates the date of report generation. Uncertainty has been curtailed to a maximum of ten times the maximum number of reported cases for plotting purposes.

Latest estimates (as of the 2020-10-22)

Table 1: Latest estimates (as of the 2020-10-22) of the number of confirmed cases by date of infection, the effective reproduction number, the rate of growth, and the doubling time (when negative this corresponds to the halving time) in each region. The median and 90% credible interval is shown.
Region New confirmed cases by infection date Expected change in daily cases Effective reproduction no. Rate of growth Doubling/halving time (days)
Africa 12232 (8504 – 16709) Likely increasing 1.1 (0.9 – 1.2) 0.02 (-0.01 – 0.05) 43.6 (14.6 – -48)
Americas 123335 (93936 – 160524) Unsure 1 (1 – 1.1) 0 (-0.01 – 0.03) 159.3 (23.6 – -50.6)
Asia 84385 (60635 – 107966) Likely decreasing 1 (0.9 – 1) -0.01 (-0.04 – 0.01) -59.3 (52.4 – -18.2)
Europe 261302 (191276 – 346098) Increasing 1.2 (1.1 – 1.3) 0.05 (0.02 – 0.08) 14.4 (8.8 – 33.5)
Global 420678 (336676 – 527997) Likely increasing 1 (1 – 1.1) 0.01 (0 – 0.03) 63.6 (22.7 – -204.3)
Oceania 550 (112 – 1232) Likely increasing 1.2 (0.9 – 1.6) 0.06 (-0.04 – 0.16) 12 (4.2 – -19.8)

National summary

Summary of latest reproduction number and confirmed case count estimates by date of infection


Figure 4: Confirmed cases with date of infection on the 2020-10-22 and the time-varying estimate of the effective reproduction number (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval). Regions are ordered by the number of expected daily confirmed cases and shaded based on the expected change in daily confirmedcases. The horizontal dotted line indicates the target value of 1 for the effective reproduction no. required for control and a single case required for elimination. Uncertainty has been curtailed to a maximum of ten times the maximum number of reported cases for plotting purposes.

Reproduction numbers over time in the six regions expected to have the most new confirmed cases


Figure 5: Time-varying estimate of the effective reproduction number (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval) in the regions expected to have the highest number of new confirmed cases. Estimates from existing data are shown up to the 2020-10-22 from when forecasts are shown. These should be considered indicative only. Estimates based on partial data have been adjusted for right truncation of infections. The vertical dashed line indicates the date of report generation.

Confirmed cases and their estimated date of infection in the six regions expected to have the most new confirmed cases


Figure 6: Confirmed cases by date of report (bars) and their estimated date of infection (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval) in the regions expected to have the highest number of new confirmed cases. Estimates from existing data are shown up to the 2020-10-22 from when forecasts are shown. These should be considered indicative only. Estimates based on partial data have been adjusted for right truncation of infections. The vertical dashed line indicates the date of report generation. Uncertainty has been curtailed to a maximum of ten times the maximum number of reported cases for plotting purposes.

Confirmed cases and their estimated date of report in the six regions expected to have the most new confirmed cases


Figure 7: Confirmed cases by date of report (bars) and their estimated date of report (lightest ribbon = 90% credible interval; darker ribbon = the 50% credible interval, darkest ribbon = 20% credible interval) in the regions expected to have the highest number of new confirmed cases. Estimates from existing data are shown up to the 2020-10-22 from when forecasts are shown. These should be considered indicative only. Estimates based on partial data have been adjusted for right truncation of infections. The vertical dashed line indicates the date of report generation. Uncertainty has been curtailed to a maximum of ten times the maximum number of reported cases for plotting purposes.

Latest estimates (as of the 2020-10-22)

Table 2: Latest estimates (as of the 2020-10-22) of the number of confirmed cases by date of infection, the effective reproduction number, the rate of growth, and the doubling time (when negative this corresponds to the halving time) in each region. The median and 90% credible interval is shown.

Gibbs, Hamish, Sam Abbott, and Sebastian Funk. 2020. “RtD3: Rt Visualization in D3.” Zenodo - (-): –. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4011841.